In Past Show

About Camila Soato

Camila Soato claims to paint mischief; “The term ‘mischief’ has a lot of meanings…It can have a focus on the sexual side. It could be a person you don’t trust too much. But it always has a comical bias. It’s never too heavy,” she says. The figures that populate Soato’s sparse paintings are often engaged in actions that seem out of place or slightly improper. A recurring image, for example, is of two animals—usually dogs—in the act of mating. Other irreverent images include children smoking, birds attacking people, or boys tormenting one another. Soato paints these narrative scenes in thick impasto, often leaving some part of the colors unmixed, on unprimed canvas.